


Ghost Story

by Fluxx



Series: The Spook Cruise, 2017 [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Alec finds a ghastly little Magnus and learns the truth about the house, Ghost Magnus Bane, Ghosts, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Jace and Alec go looking for ghosts, M/M, Malec, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 07:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12271896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluxx/pseuds/Fluxx
Summary: Alec and Jace break into an old crime scene with high hopes of photographing a ghost. When Jace wanders off to explore, Alec is met by the tormented spirit of a young boy. By steeling his nerves and talking to the ghost, Alec hopes to learn the truth of what happened in this now-haunted house, and perhaps enable the boy to at last find peace.Prompt response for The Spook Cruise, 2017:Malec + Ghost Magnus.Submit a prompt for The Spook Cruise!





	Ghost Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KioneM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KioneM/gifts).



Alec shifted uncomfortably on the sidewalk, hands shoved into his jacket’s pockets. Anxiously, he glanced up and down the street, keeping an eye out and wincing every time Jace’s struggling summoned a high-pitched rattling from the chain link fence. “Come on, man, this is stupid. Let’s just go home.”

“You kidding me?” Jace grumbled, a final strike at last breaking the fence’s padlock. The gate swung open, and he shot a wide grin over his shoulder, the streetlights giving his golden eyes a wild gleam. “This place is  _perfect_. If anywhere in this dumb town is haunted, it’s here.”

Well, he couldn’t argue with  _that_. The lot had been closed off for about a decade now, the yellow police tape stretched and discolored from years of neglect. It sagged from where it’d been wrapped around the house’s porch entry, hardly posing any kind of barrier to the two teens. Of greater concern was the way the wooden steps and floorboards creaked loudly beneath their careful footsteps, threatening to give way at any moment. The entire house was charred black, and the charcoal smell of flames still tinged the air, as if they were breathing in fresh embers and ash.

Alec shuddered, his hands gripping the camera hanging from around his neck. “It’s also an active crime scene. If we get caught in here—”

“The cops haven’t been here in years,” Jace interrupted, rolling his eyes. “Everyone dead, and any hope of evidence burned to a crisp. It’s a cold case no one cares about anymore.”

Despite everything else, Alec couldn’t help but sigh at the remark. Jace was right, and the reminder made Alec’s heart go out to the mysterious trio. The reported story was there’d been an accident, a gas leak or something, that killed the couple and their young child, but no one in town believed it. If that were the whole story, why was the place still closed off and protected by the city a whole decade after the fact? Most of the townsfolk whispered of foul play, but whether it’d been the mother, the father, the child, or maybe even someone else, no one could say for sure - not even the cops, apparently.

They steadily made their way into the master bedroom, white police tape barely visible upon the floor through layers of caked dust. They outlined two bodies, an adult’s and a child’s. “The dad’s, right?” Jace asked, crouching beside them.

Alec’s eyes shifted warily towards the bed. It was one of those fancy, four-post beds, or had been anyway. The sheer drapes had been eaten through in multiple places first by flames and then by moths, and whatever remained was so dirtied it looked nearly opaque black, much more like cobwebs than veils. “Yeah,” he finally replied, slowly moving from the bed towards a nearby dresser. “They found the mom in—”

His heart skipped a beat, and he whirled. Jace sprung to a stand, camera raised. “What is it?!” he hissed, his heart racing.

A cold sweat had formed on Alec’s skin. He swallowed, gathering his strength before answering, but still his voice shook. “I… I thought… I saw someone,” he managed to reply. “In… In the mirror…”

Jace eyed the mirror mounted above the dresser. It was just as dusty and charred as the rest of the house, only tiny blotches of its metallic backing still intact. He smirked, eyes sliding back to Alec as his pulse returned to normal.

Alec screamed, feeling fingers upon his back. Jace caught his punch in one hand, bursting into laughter at Alec’s terrified expression. “Asshole!!!” Alec yelled, yanking his fist free and shaking off his nerves.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Jace stepped around him and back out of the room. “Let’s split up. We’ll cover more ground and can get out of here quicker that way.” He paused in the threshold, turning a raised brow at him. “Unless you’d rather spend the night here?”

“Fuck off.”

Jace snorted and took his leave, Alec glaring after him the whole while. Only when his friend was completely out of sight did he finally release his breath, turning back around towards the bed with a groan. “I’m gonna kill him,” he muttered under his breath.

But when he opened his eyes again, he froze, his heart gripped with so much fear he swore it’d stopped beating entirely.

The round face of a small boy stared up at him, quiet and still. His eyes were as dark as his straight, black hair, and his face would have been something like bronze were it not for the pale of its translucency. Alec’s eyes grew wide, and wider still, his entire body shaking. He begged himself to scream, to run, to do  _something_ , but no amount of will could break through the horror…

…and, through his wide-eyed staring, he eventually came to notice the slight glistening at the corners of the boy’s eyes. He blinked, his brow slowly furrowing, and he gradually came to realize the boy looked just as scared. Bit by bit, he managed to calm down, and eased himself lower to the ground. “H… H-Hey, there,” his trembling voice whispered, one hand raising before him.

The boy shied into himself, eyeing Alec’s hand. He realized something about his hand appeared to bother the boy, so he quickly lowered it again with a soft, mumbled apology. As he’d guessed, it got the boy to relax again, his face turning back to regard Alec’s.

“Um…” Alec murmured, wracking his brain for what he should do next.  _This is insane!!! I’m… I’m **talking**  to a ghost??? What the hell?!_ “M-My… My name’s… Alec…”

The boy didn’t respond, only continued to stare.

Alec closed his eyes, thinking back to all the news stories that’d come out at the time. “Your… Your name is…” He remembered thinking the name sounded peculiar. That, ultimately, is what made it stick out, and he couldn’t keep a triumphant smile from brightening his face as he finally declared, “It’s ‘Magnus,’ right? That’s your name?”

To Alec’s great relief, the boy managed a small smile, then slowly nodded. A moment later, however, an anguish consumed his face, and the glistening at his eyes worsened. He turned around and began staring at the bed, a tiny hand reaching out and slipping its fingers through the mattress’s edge.

Alec followed the boy’s gaze towards the pillows. As it dawned on him what the boy was thinking about, his heart fell, taking his voice with it. “You… miss your mother… ?”

The boy wiped at his eyes, then twisted around to regard his father’s outline upon the floor. His brow narrowed, the pain in his expression worsening.

“Your father killed her?” Alec asked, a strange kind of anxiety swelling within him. He was now the closest anyone had ever gotten to actually uncovering the truth, but though he knew others would want to know the story he loathed the thought of sharing it with anyone. Magnus was telling  _him_ , and that made it feel somehow personal and special, like a close-kept secret.

The boy shook his head, then turned to a toppled nightstand. His finger lifted, its point directing Alec’s attention towards a wooden box.

It was decaying and misshapen, its fire-exposed splinters the home of maggots and probably a roach or two. Still, as Alec moved closer and knelt beside it, he could still see with a tilt of his head the box’s once-velveteen interior and its shallow, long indent. He frowned, puzzling out the silhouette, then finally looked back over his shoulder to the boy. “…a dagger?” he asked.

A half-pleased, but half-saddened look touched the boy’s eyes and smile. He looked back to the bed, where his mother’s corpse had been found, and Alec’s heart broke.

“She… took her life,” Alec murmured, raising back to a stand. Why did he feel so helpless? He looked back at Magnus. “I’m sorry.” His eyes drifted to the father’s outline. “…Your dad got upset?”

The boy’s lips pursed, and his hands balled into fists. He was now all but glaring at the outline.

Alec frowned. “Your dad… burned the house down… ?” he asked, but even as he did he doubted that was the right answer - he could see the guy being angry about it, even going so far as blaming his kid, but burning the place and killing them both in the process seemed a bit…  _much_ …

Magnus was sad again, but it was a kind of fiery sadness. Hands still fisted, he turned his head, and Alec’s eyes trailed over towards a bronze candle holder, discarded and forgotten where it’d rolled and bounced and came to rest under a fallen standing lamp and armchair. A few feet away was a thin, dark blotch that sported a muted shine in the sparse moonlight piercing the house.

“Wax,” Alec realized in a hushed whisper. “A candle.” His eyes crossed back across the floor, connecting in a fairly straight line the candle holder, the father’s outline, and Magnus’s outline. Magnus himself had come to sit there, face hidden in the wrap of his arms around his raised knees. It took a while, but finally Alec pieced it all together, and hesitantly moved closer to Magnus. “Your mother killed herself… You found her here, and your dad walked in…”

As he sat beside Magnus on the ground, he reached out to lay a hand on the boy’s back, remembering at the last minute he couldn’t. Somehow, it’d become easy to forget he was interacting with a ghost. A  **ghost**. He blinked and shook his head, still marveling the phenomena, but continued. “Your dad got mad at you, and it upset you. You threw the candle you’d been holding at him, and…” He sighed, looking around at the destroyed home.

_I guess the story’s truer than people think, even though it’s not the **full**  story._

He glanced back at Magnus. The boy was still hiding his face, but he’d stopped shaking. Alec’s expression softened, and when he spoke again it was filled with sympathy. “Hey… It’s… It’s alright. You were upset, and you made a mistake.”

Slowly, Magnus lifted his head, peering quietly over his arms. His eyes were reddened from crying, but the tears had ceased to flow. Still, he seemed wary, eyeing Alec in a silent anxiety.

Alec considered things for a moment, then offered a smile. “I won’t tell anyone. We can… keep it between us, if you like. And…” He hesitated, then slowly extended his hand between them. This time, rather than holding up to wave, he laid it flat, palm-up, like he was offering something. “…I know I’m nobody, and I certainly don’t hold any significance in your life, but… Well, for what it’s worth,  _I_  forgive you, at least.”

For a long while, Magnus stared at Alec’s hand, and Alec grew nervous. Was that the wrong thing to say? Had he upset the boy further? What was he  _doing_ , conversing like this with a ghost?! But then, Alec caught the subtle lift of Magnus’s small mouth, until a small, sad smile pinched his cheeks and softened his eyes. At long last, the boy extended his hand, moving his fingers toward’s Alec’s…

“Alec?”

Alec started, eyes snapping up to the threshold.

Jace was standing there, a brow peaked. “What… are you doing… ?”

“Uhhh…” Alec looked to his side. The space beside him was completely vacant - not even the dust upon the floor had been disturbed. “…Nothing,” he mumbled, standing up and dusting himself off. “Just, uh… thinking…”

Jace rolled his eyes and turned around. “Let’s get out of here. I didn’t find so much as a shifting curtain, much less any  _actual_  ghosts.”

As he followed his friend, Alec glanced over his shoulder to the body tape on the floor. He couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed to find nothing there. “…Yeah, me neither,” he softly lied.

Jace whined and complained the whole way out of the house, declaring the whole thing a “waste of a perfectly good night” and wishing they’d gone for the hospital one town over. Alec droned most of it out, still contemplating his encounter with the little ghost boy and offering little more than the occasional “yeah” and “uh-huh” to appease Jace.

At the gate, Jace gave a final groan, then wove as he departed into the night. “Well, whatever. We still on for karaoke tomorrow?”

Alec glanced up at him as he pulled the gate shut, awkwardly wrapping the chain through its frame to keep it closed. “Uh…” He cast one last look across the overgrown lawn to the crumbling house. There, in the window… He  _swore_  he saw a tiny face, and beside it a tiny, waving hand. Alec smiled, nodding at the foggy silhouette, then looked back at his friend with a goofy smile.

“Yeah, Jace. Sure thing.”


End file.
